“Writing your memoir can be one of the best things you could ever do for yourself,” says Dr Hunter, author of Write Your Memoir: The Soul Work of Telling Your Story. “I’ve worked with memoirists and with personal essay writers for thirty years and the thing that never fails to astonish me is that when people write their lives, they are changed by the experience.”

You may not have had the most interesting childhood in the world, but everyone has had a few memorable experiences. Highlight the best parts when you can. If you live in a big city, for instance, you should realize that many people who grew up in the country have never ridden a subway, walked to school, ridden in a taxi, or walked to a store a few blocks away.

It’s possible that writing your life story could be therapeutic, offering closure on some not so bright spots of your personal history along with emotional and psychological healing. Maybe your life was just a circus act from the beginning and is funny. If writing your life story touches you while you are writing it, think about all the people you can touch when they read it.

How did the memoir keep the reader engaged and interested in the story? The best memoirs are honest and unflinching, with details or admissions that the writer may be afraid to make. The writer may write in a way that feels truthful, full of moments that may not make the writer look good or conflicted. But readers often respond to vulnerability in a memoir, and a writer who is not afraid to describe their failures along with their successes.
Hey livelifehappy, is there a way I can join the crew? I’m a 12 year old girl dreamer, and I’m turning 13 pretty soon. I made my own website for those who want to live life the way they want, but are drawn back by fear, aka-stargazers. Maybe visit it sometime? I feel like this website really helped me a lot, and whoever wrote these quotes, and the owner of the site, has a lot in common with me. Please send me an email, I really want to be able to work with those who understand and can relate. I feel like people like us are one in a million, and it would be a honor to help/contribute, since I think we feel/think in a similar way. I feel like other people will be able to understand, but I felt like I can relate. I know I’m young, but I’ve been through a tough life of bullying and the death of my brother, and three best friends. Faith was what saved me. So now, I feel like I would do anything, ANYTHING, to find somewhere I belong and somebody to write with. Please consider me! ~ Victoria Lee
Writing your own bio means having to spend hours or days even to really get down to the nitty-gritty of your life’s history to get the information you need for your biography. If you want to spare yourself from spending endless hours working on your bio, you should consider hiring a professional writing company like us to handle this for you. Our bio writing service specializes in biographies and because of this, you can rest easy knowing that your own bio will be in good hands.
Once you have taken a look at your own life from an outsider’s point of view, you will be able to select the most interesting elements from your notes to establish a theme. What was the most interesting thing you came up with in your research? Was it the history of your family and your region? Here is an example of how you can turn that into a theme:

What else happened after each of these main events? What was important to you at this time? Did you have any special friends? A pet? A romantic partner? A spouse? What specific event will best show the relationship you had with this person or animal? Was the best friend who helped you through a difficult time a kind and gentle soul? What single act of kindness most stands out when you think of this person? Write about that. What actions and dialogue can you relate in concrete detail to help readers understand that relationship and its importance?

This is an extremely emotional and intimate type of writing. You share a personal experience with your readers in a detailed manner. Your audience should have an opportunity to see the event or person that you’ve written about through your eyes and understand your feelings. Any personal essay has two main aspects: the description of a particular situation and how it has influenced your worldview and life. Generally, the personal essay is the shortest form of autobiographical writing, along with the essay for college.

Not necessarily a writer, but still want to record your story somehow? Don’t think that there’s no hope for you. Consider making audio or video recordings. Audio recordings can be especially helpful. You can take audio recordings to a writer/transcriptionist who can then type out your story in a logical order. Working closely with a writer as you verbally record your stories can be an alternative when you feel you are too close to the story.

There is a good chance that if you haven’t had to write a bio already, that you may have to in the future. A bio is required of many job applicants, it is used on many networking sites, freelancers have to have one for potential clients and if you have a website or blog connected to your business, you should probably have one. Bios provide a concise summary of who a person is and what they do, while at the same time, they allow a bit of personality to come through. There are basically two main functions your bio should perform: 1) establish your credentials and qualifications; 2) create enough interest so the reader will want to know more.
For example, let's say you wrote, "From the age of ten, I knew I would become a concert pianist." What specific event triggered this determination? Can you describe that one event in a paragraph or two, using all the senses available to you—sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell? Using all five senses will help readers imagine the moment as if they were present with you. This vicarious act of reliving events arouses more emotion in readers than simple summary. and if you can master it, you are well on your way to writing an autobiography! Sensory description: The narrow plank felt warm and smooth beneath my bare feet. I ran its length in three strides, arms extended out from my sides for balance. At the end I took a weightless leap into eighteen inches of space. I caught a barely-there flash of metal just before I landed hard, all my weight on my front foot. Then pain like a red-hot poker jammed through my arch, and the gleaming tip of a three-inch nail as it emerged through the top of my foot. Summary: That day I jumped on a board with a nail in it and it went through my foot.
These are great tips! Especially about writing what comes to you, not the story you originally set out to write. Sometimes we’re smarter than we even know and something important is trying to come out! I also recommend checking out StoryShelter – it has lots of question prompts to get you writing about your life. See what questions get your attention and maybe do a free write around them to get the juices flowing!
Many people who have something to tell, have an experience, or have the knowledge and vision “as it should be.” What if you decided to write your own book and it’s not a novel about love and adventures? To become a good writer or to write an interesting book is not an easy task. Unfortunately, this won’t totally depend on hard work, diligence and regular training: you can sit with a laptop, paper, pen or voice recorder at least eight hours every day – and still, you will get something dull and colorless that nobody wants to read. Not always does the desire to write a book match the capabilities and talent. But making effort and progress is still necessary. Anyone who wants to write their first book, should read and write, try different styles and genres, and listen to the world around. The main thing is to throw into trash away all “must” and “deserving / not deserving of attention,” ideas which aspiring authors often suffer from. Here are an autobiography topics list and autobiography examples which can help you.
Make every day count!!! Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free, and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don’t believe in yourself, it will be hard for others to believe in you. You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life then go out and live it with absolutely no regrets.
"Most people don’t think of spiders when they bite into a tomato, but I do. Growing up in southern Ohio, I spent many summer afternoons picking baskets of tomatoes that would be canned or frozen and preserved for cold winter’s dinners. I loved the results of my labors, but I’ll never forget the sight of the enormous, black and white, scary-looking spiders that lived in the plants and created zigzag designs on their webs. In fact, those spiders, with their artistic web creations, inspired my interest in bugs and shaped my career in science."
Not only does writing about your life story change you, it can change others as well. Your history can have a powerful effect on other people’s lives! Especially if you’ve learned, grown and changed through the years. And I suspect you have. You wouldn’t be searching for information on how to write about your life story if nothing every happened to you 🙂
Create a plot outline. Though you are writing a memoir, following the principles of fiction, such as a plot outline, can help give your book form and shape. It can also make it easier for you to organize your research materials in a way that is engaging and interesting for your reader. A story’s plot is what happens in the story and the order it happens in. For there to be a story, something has to move or change. Something or someone goes from point A to point B due to a physical event, a decision, a change in a relationship, or a change in a character or person. Your plot outline should include:[6]
2. Share your stories with your family. A few weeks ago, I told my 7-year-old son about a story I’m writing for kids. I mentioned that I’d been working on this story for months. “How come you never told me before?” he wanted to know. He was genuinely shocked—maybe even a little hurt—that I’d kept the plot points to myself. “I guess I didn’t think you’d be interested,” I told him truthfully. He is obsessed with soccer and ice hockey, and mine is a story of girls, time travel, and shyness. But it bothered him that I had a story I’d chosen not to mention. From now on, I’ll err on the side of sharing the things I dream up even if they have nothing to do with soccer balls and hockey pucks.
Determine the key actions and obstacles in your story. Once you have a sense of what desire or want you want to explore in your memoir, you can identify the actions and obstacles your narrator must overcome to achieve the desire line. Obstacles or challenges will give the story stakes and motivate your reader to keep turning the pages of your memoir. You are the driver of the action in your story and a story isn’t very exciting if it doesn’t have any driving action.[4]
Ruth O’Neil has been a freelance writer for more than 20 years, publishing hundreds of articles in dozens of publications. Her first novel Come Eat at My Table came out earlier this year. Her second is on its way. When she’s not writing, Ruth spends her time quilting, reading, scrapbooking, camping and hiking with her family. Visit her blog at http://www.ruths-real-life.blogspot.com or website at http://ruthoneil.weebly.com.
An autobiography came from the Greek word autos, which means self, bios, which means life, and graphein, which means to write. In a simple explanation, autobiography is when you learn how to write a life story about yourself. It is a narrative of your story, written in your voice, and seen in your perspective. If we’re talking about a company you should know that stories about company success are becoming more and more important today. To learn more about it go to corporate story biography writing.
You are not the first person who wants to write about his or her life. Many famous writers, artists, politicians, and businessmen create autobiographies to share their wisdom and experience with a wide audience. Find the autobiography that belongs to the author whose personality inspires you and read it in order to get a basic understanding of autobiographical writing.
While you might not remember every detail about a certain event, I guarantee someone who was there does remember. Asking family and friends for ideas or details of a certain situation can give you a completely different perspective of the event or time in your life. That perspective might prove to be invaluable in your writing. Be prepared; once you get a group of family and friends together to reminisce, you will be shocked at how quickly the ideas come and how one idea can spark another and another and another.

The aim of such an essay is obvious: you need it to convince admissions officers to accept you into college. As a rule, there is a word limit specified in the instruction for applicants. Don’t confuse an autobiographical essay with your CV or resume! They have totally different structure and formatting. In addition, the essay is aimed at portraying you as a personality, not as a professional.

Now, it’s time to think on how to conclude an autobiography. Your conclusion has to be strong and impressive. Mention what lessons you’ve learned and what changes in your life you’ve witnessed thanks to the described episode of your life. Even if this event has had negative consequences, you shouldn’t hide anything. Bad experiences are also useful for personal development. As Theodore Roosevelt once said: “The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”
“Talking about the past can have a healing function, but what we find is that talk, literally, is cheap,” Dr Hunter says. “We speak words and they fly away before we’ve faced what it is they convey. This is not the case with the written word. Writers find themselves saying, ‘ I never really thought about it before’ or ‘ I never saw it this way until I started to write it’.
If the purpose of your autobiography is to pass on your story to your heirs, consider including memorabilia (e.g. pictures, heirlooms, medals, mementos, letters, etc.) and putting your story in a scrapbook format. Of course, you may not be able to copy the memorabilia that accompanies your autobiography, so you still have to think about what you intend to do with your original work and other items, such as medals or bulky heirlooms.